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I just watched "The Pirate Planet" an awesome Doctor Who episode written by Douglas Adams. It's from the Tom Baker days. I think Adams is the perfect writer for Tom Baker's Doctor, with all of his pithy lines.

I'm in the middle of watching all the Tom Baker episodes. Which episode is that?

Title: Re: Doctor Who
Post by: Teatime on June 06, 2011, 03:22:39 PM

It's "The Pirate Planet," the second episode in"The Key to Time" adventure, which is a series of episodes in which the Doctor looks for the pieces of the Key to Time with Romana. These are my favorites. I wanted to watch them in order, which I haven't done in years, but the third one isn't on streaming at Netflix, so I skipped it. I just watched the fourth.

You can see the list of episodes in order here:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Story_arcs_in_Doctor_Who#The_Key_to_Time (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Story_arcs_in_Doctor_Who#The_Key_to_Time)

Title: Re: Doctor Who
Post by: Kilman on June 07, 2011, 12:15:56 AM

I wonder if the old Dr. Who episodes (Baker era) will find their way back on TV?

One odd thing I noticed over the last year or two, no one seems to broadcast the original Star Trek series any more. I used to think those would never go off the air.

Title: Re: Doctor Who
Post by: Teatime on June 07, 2011, 12:24:32 AM

I hope so. Maybe PBS or the SciFi channel. Not that I actually have the SciFi channel. ::)

Title: Re: Doctor Who
Post by: Kilman on June 07, 2011, 12:44:01 AM

What? No SciFi? You miss out on so many cheesy made for TV movie originals. They are the kind of movie you watch to laugh at how bad they are. But to be fair, they do have some good stuff.

BTW - They call themselves Syfy now. (Some not too bright execs thought the SciFi name was limiting their audience and somehow Syfy was so much more hip)

I suspect most Dr. Who fans already know this, but I just realized a Shada novel is coming out in June. It is entitled, "Doctor Who: Shada: The Lost Adventure by Douglas Adams." No idea if it will be any good, but there you have it...

Title: Re: Doctor Who
Post by: Teatime on May 30, 2012, 05:26:03 PM

Yay! I hope it'll be good. :)

Title: Re: Doctor Who
Post by: Teatime on July 27, 2012, 04:21:08 PM

I found a Shada book review. http://www.wired.com/geekmom/2012/07/doctor-who-shada/ (http://www.wired.com/geekmom/2012/07/doctor-who-shada/)

Title: Re: Doctor Who
Post by: Kilman on July 30, 2012, 03:13:12 PM

Hmmm, the big question for me... Having never read any Dr. Who books, and having not watched any Dr. Who since the Tom Baker days, should I be reading this? Will it just seem too disconnected for me and so not very satisfying? Or will I get sucked into the Dr. Who universe, a veritable black hole of time? Most likely I will go for the grand stall by putting it off until an undetermined later date.

Title: Re: Doctor Who
Post by: Teatime on July 30, 2012, 03:46:00 PM

Yeah, I'm thinking of waiting for everyone else to read it so I can buy a used book for less than 10 bucks. Even the Kindle version is $12.99.

Title: Re: Doctor Who
Post by: Teatime on July 30, 2012, 03:48:57 PM

And I think you should be watching the newer episodes. I resisted for a long time because I loved the old ones and I didn't like the idea of the Doctor having a romance with his companions. I mean, the first Doctor was a grandpa for goodness sake!

That would be the black hole of time I mentioned if I get caught up in the new series. We have every episode since the series started back up in 2005 on DVD. If I start watching, I'd have to watch them all.

BBC America is running a series called "The Doctors Revisited" for the 50th anniversary covering every doctor, starting with The First Doctor. Unfortunately, that episode was last Sunday and I don't see a reshowing (at least in the next 10 days or so). It was a 3 hour show, part documentary (w/ David Tennant among others), and the second part was a full episode of the First Doctor, "The Aztecs". There will be a new one every month until they get through all 11 doctors. Hopefully they will chose a Douglas Adams written episode for Tom Baker. It is possible they will rerun the first doctor in the lead up to the second one. Expect the second doctor in late February, probably on a Sunday evening.

The above mentioned first episode of The Doctors Revisited will re-air this Wednesday on BBC America. It looks like there will be one showing in the afternoon/evening and a replay in the middle of the night.

The Doctors Revisited - The First Doctor (documentary plus The Aztecs)

The Aztecs was apparently the 6th Doctor Who episode - This showing includes all 4 parts of the episode for a total of 100 minutes. Documentary is about half hour if you remove the commercials.

In looking that up, I noticed that many Doctor Who episodes from the first 6 seasons are "missing" - no doubt related to the short sighted policy that almost saw most of Monty Python's episodes destroyed by the BBC. Python was only saved by one or more of the members buying the recordings so they would not be wiped out. Sometimes it pays to be a packrat.

I found some interesting tidbits about Doctor Who in an article about a book publishing in 1986, including the following:

"Ford Prefect from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy was created by Douglas Adams as a reaction against the Doctor. Show writer Douglas Adams says it himself:

You see, the Doctor is always rushing around and saving people and planets generally doing good works, so to speak. I thought the keynote in the character of Ford Prefect was that, given the choice between getting involved and saving the world from some disaster on one hand, and on the other going to a really good party, he’d go to the party. Every time. So that was the departure point for Ford."

Isn't there actually a bit in the third book where Slartibartfast is trying to get them to save the world and Ford would rather go to a party? And of course, the book was originally a Doctor Who script, so I guess it was all but directly pointed out there--not that I noticed at the time, but it's pretty neat.

Title: Re: Doctor Who
Post by: Kilman on April 17, 2015, 06:26:03 AM

Another Adams Dr. Who script to be novelized by the same guy who wrote Shada.